Should Hardik Pandya be dropped from the Test team?

He might have to be relieved from Tests for now, taking into account his workload and lukewarm overseas performances in the longer version

Is Hardik Pandya truly cut out for Tests? A debate has been initiated about his Test worthiness and the domino effect that the load of the five-day format would have on his white-ball performance and availability.

A total of 532 runs and 17 wickets in 11 Tests are no Kapil Dev numbers but on the look of it, they still appear quite healthy. But like all stats, those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Segregate them from his performances in South Africa and England and the overseas figures would look very ordinary.

They would not live up to the hype that was created about his all-round skills since he was fasttracked into the five-day format a year ago.

In the three Test matches in South Africa, he scored 119 runs, again a misleading number. If one takes out the 93 he scored in one innings in Cape Town, in the remaining five innings, his contribution with the bat was 26 runs. In bowling, he took three wickets in three Tests. So the bubble was burst in South Africa.

As if that was not enough, in England recently, he aggregated 164 runs and 10 wickets in four Tests. If one were to take out the 5-28 in the first innings of the Nottingham Test, which India won, his contribution with the ball in the remaining six innings was five wickets. He has also not had much of exposure in first-class cricket, having played only 28 games in five years since his Ranji debut.

Asif is a late bloomer, having made his first-class debut only at the age of 26 in 2011.

Michael Holding had cautioned us not to be under the illusion that he would be the fast-bowling allrounder that India has been waiting for since Kapil Dev retired more than two decades ago. The West Indian legend had said that Pandya is no Test match material as he was not exactly making meaningful contribution either with the bat or with the ball.

“Apparently they are playing Hardik Pandya as an allrounder to help out with the bowling. When he bowls he isn’t as effective as he should be. If he was a good batsman, if he was getting runs - 60s, 70s, not even regular hundreds - at the number at which he bats and then he bowls and gets two or three wickets, happy, hallelujah. Happy with that. But he is not getting the amount of runs that can then allow him to get a wicket or two in the Test match. That doesn’t work,” Holding had told Cricinfo in England.

Pandya proved Holding wrong with a five-wicket burst in helpful conditions in Nottingham but then that was about that. He was not as effective before or after that.

Now for the impact on his white-ball performance. The 24-year-old Baroda all-rounder is surely an asset in limited-overs cricket -- 40 wickets in 42 ODIs are healthy just as 670 runs in 27 innings at an average of 29 are not bad. Add his acrobatic fielding skills on the boundary line and he is a huge asset in the white-ball formats. Now the point is of workload.

Since his international debut two years ago, he has played 11 Tests, 42 ODIs and 35 T20Is. That is beside the Indian Premier League that he plays every year.

So, should there not be some relief for the player, who is considered highly effective in ODIs and T20Is? Besides there is a World Cup in just over seven months and the question is: should he not be preserved for the tournament?

India middle-order batsman Ambati Rayudu’s is conspicuous by his absence from the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. He has not turned up to play the tournament for Hyderabad, his domestic side.

The impression all-round is that Pandya may have to take a break from Test cricket for the time being at least if not in the long run, which means he will not be considered for the Australia series.

The powers that be of Indian cricket would not talk about it openly but the general impression is that Pandya may be lost for good if not handled properly.

He has had a few injuries because of which he could not be part of some important games, including the recent Asia Cup, and somewhere some planning must be initiated about his workload management, the new fad in Indian cricket. Chief selector MSK Prasad and the Indian team management would not talk about it openly but there surely has to be a move to preserve the asset he can be.

May be the move will be initiated during the meeting the players, the team management, the selectors and the CoA and the management of the BCCI will have today in Hyderabad.